What about it men, do you sing in church? Women, do you hear them singing?
What about it churches and worship leaders? Do we pick songs in the right keys that encourage men to sing?
Many current worship songs' melodies are pitched in keys that make it uncomfortable for men to sing. For the worship artist it is no problem, for the average man...problem. The same can be said for the hymns and gospel songs in our history, the difference being men and ladies alike were taught to sing a harmony part. Today almost everyone sings the melody. So if the melody is not in a comfortable range...men don't sing...and neither will ladies. When that happens we have a problem because worship is not something we should stand and watch but what we have been commanded to participate in.
To avoid this problem of 'no singing men' we follow these guidelines:
- Make sure the melodies don't go above a D and if they do it is only a quickly passing note.
- If a song's melody is in the too high range, change the key to move the melody.
- Have men be leaders, give them a chance to start a song.
- Have only the men sing sometimes so that they can hear other men singing which encourages more participation.
- Stop and encourage the men to sing...it is a great testimony to the women and students in the service.
The men sang at our weekend services this week, especially on a song where we had a man lead and asked the men only to sing along. It was a great sound and a great testimony. I want all people in our services to participate in worship and sometimes we have to plan intentional ways to encourage that participation.
Here is our Sunday Setlist.
Song Set 1
Holy Is the Lord (a simple version of a Schubert piece that brings to light the holiness of God and mentions the Trinity. It works great with acoustic guitar or simple piano accompaniment.)
Father Spirit Jesus (here we moved from talking about a Holy God to making the worship personal. Good song from Mark Hall, Chad Cates and Dave Hunt.)
Welcome
Missions Spotlight
We believe in doing our role in accomplishing the great commission. When we send people out we want to hear about how God worked through their surrender. However, it doesn't do well when we try to do this live so a video interview works best for us. We know we will get the same story each time the video is played.
Scripture
Matthew 28:19-20 (we put this on the screen and had the congregation read it as a follow-up to the missions video.)
Song Set 2
Nothing But the Blood
Christ is Risen by Matt Maher
Everything to Me (this is the song we featured men on and asked the men only to sing the first part of it together)
Sermon
Video Transition (we started a new sermon series today walking through the book of Jonah. As an intro to this series, we found and used a good video from Sermon Spice called Jonah in 20 Words.
Sermon
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This post is my participation in the blog carnival Sunday Setlists which can be found at The Worship Community.